About Lucia Cherciu
Published Author
Lucia Cherciu is the author of six books of poetry, including Immigrant Prodigal Daughter (Kelsay Books, 2023), Train Ride to Bucharest Sheep Meadow Press, 2017), which received the Eugene Paul Nassar Poetry Prize, Edible Flowers (Main Street Rag, 2016), Lalele din Paradis /
Tulips in Paradise (Editura Eikon, 2017), Altoiul Râsului / Grafted Laughter (Editura Brumar, 2010), and Lepădarea de Limbă / The Abandonment of Language (Editura Vinea, 2009). Her work was nominated multiple times for a Pushcart Prize and for Best of the Net. Her work appeared in “Poetry,” “Antioch Review,” “The Southern Review,” “Paterson Literary Review,” “Poetry East,” and in many Romanian literary magazines, such as “Timpul,” “Hyperion,” “Contrapunct,” and “Astra.” Currently, she is looking for a publisher for her first novel. She received her Ph.D. in English from Indiana University of Pennsylvania with the dissertation titled Ludicrous ‘Scribbling Women: The Politics of Laughter and Nineteenth-Century American Women Writers. Lucia Cherciu is a Professor of English at SUNY / Dutchess Community College and served as the 2021-2022 Dutchess County, New York poet laureate. Her web page is http://luciacherciu.com.
Facebook.com/lucia.cherciu
Instagram: #CherciuLucia
Books
Immigrant Prodigal Daughter (Kelsay Books, June 2023)
Endorsements
Lucia Cherciu’s Immigrant Prodigal Daughter knows how to “grapple / with the gravity of
grammar,” weaving together the author’s roots in Romania and her life in New York. It is not
easy work, yet there’s abundance here, too—from the orchards where a grandfather grafted three
types of apple on a single trunk, to the fruit trees the poet later plants during lockdown. The gifts
of these poems aren’t flashy but bone-deep, like the pillow from a grandmother’s wake. We’re
reminded that home is both ache and welcome, distance and forgiveness. What a gift, then, to
arrive at the table of these poems, rich with “wedding soups, roasted roosters, cherry preserves, // juices and sauces that splatter an arduous cook’s kitchen.”
Laura Donnelly, author of Midwest Gothic
Lucia Cherciu’s Immigrant Prodigal Daughter vividly conjures her Romanian past. Her poems
explore homesickness and loss, exemplified by the Romanian custom of giving away a dead
one’s belongings. Giving becomes the mirror-image of loss (“We Only Get to Keep What We
Give Away”), and language becomes the mirror in which the beloved past can still be seen. The
“longing for home, dorul” is counterbalanced and finally outweighed by the speaker’s
redemptive generosity. Her joy in giving, tending her garden, writing these poems, heals the rift
between worlds: “If my grandmothers can see me / they recognize the flowers of their youth”
(“The Privilege of Water”).
Barbara Ungar, author of Save Our Ship
Immigrant Prodigal Daughter is a tender lament for a country left behind, but what is a country?
It is dirges sung, apricots, and lavender. It is capoate, the black housedresses worn by old
Romanian women. Amid the rich sensuality of memory, the poet takes herself to task. Has she
praised enough? Done too much? Not enough? “I have taken my child / away from my mother”
writes Cherciu, and yet what the reader overwhelmingly feels beside the vulnerable
self-questioning is a love song to family and an ode to ancestry.
Jessica Cuello, author of Liar
Poetry
Poems available online:
“Prefiguration” and “Procession.” Sleet. 2025.
https://sleetmagazine.com/selected/cherciu_v16n1.html
“Walking as Devotion” and “Bending Backwards.” Verse-Virtual. August 2025.
https://www.verse-virtual.org/2025/August/cherciu-lucia-2025-august.html
“Reframing.” Penmen Review. 2024.
https://penmenreview.com/reframing/
“Tango pe bulevardele metropolei,” “Merii de acasă,” “Credeam că mai aveam timp.” Familia.
https://revistafamilia.ro/?p=9467
“Bilingualism,” “Dear Confidence,” “My Friend Gave Me Old Pictures of My Father”
Poetry Breakfast 2023.
https://poetrybreakfast.com/tag/lucia-cherciu/
“Butter, Olive oil, Flour.” Poetry. May 2023.
https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazine/poems/160028/butter-olive-oil-flour
“Flowers and Weeds.” San Antonio Review.
https://www.sareview.org/pub/t0rlzz06/release/1
“Which Table Do You Remember Most?” San Antonio Review.
https://www.sareview.org/pub/td7308re/release/1
“The Golden Geometry of Light.” Issue 11, 2022.
https://variantlit.com/the-golden-geometry-of-light/
“You Missed the Bus,” “Today I Refuse to Read My E-mail,” and “Immigrant.” The Pine Cone
Review. Issue 4, 2022.
https://thepineconereview.com/lucia-cherciu-3-poems-issue-4/
“The Season of Giving.” Innisfree Poetry Journal. Issue 33. Fall 2021.
https://www.innisfreepoetry.org/innisfree-33/lucia-cherciu/
“The Apple Trees from Home,” Innisfree Poetry Journal. Issue 32, spring 2021.
http://authormark.com/artman2/publish/Innisfree_32LUCIA_CHERCIU2.shtml
“Immigrant Verbs.” Citron Review. 2022.
Readings
2025 Schedule
- Thursday, September 18 th , 2015. 6:30 PM, at Val-Kill, Hyde Park. Featured Poet together
with Stephanie Russell.
- Saturday, September 13 th , 2025. 2:00 PM. Featured Reader together with Alice Graves.
The reading will take place at Paul McMahon's "Woodstock Mothership" (6 Sgt. Richard Quinn Drive; Woodstock, NY 12498). Richard Quinn Drive used to be named Hillcrest
Ave. More information here: https://paulmcmahon.tv/mothership
- Wednesday, May 21 st , 2025. 7:30 PM. New Year’s Words Poetry Marathon, Elting Public
Library, New Paltz.
- Thursday, May 15 th, 2025, 7:00 PM at Boardman Library, Poughkeepsie. Featured Reader
together with Hannah Webster.
Book Reviews
Recent Reviews
Arvilla Fee. Book Review of Immigrant Prodigal Daughter. 2023.
https://www.sareview.org/pub/u0qpledc/release/2
Kosek, Raphael. “Always Already Home”: Book Review of Immigrant Prodigal
Daughter. 2024.
https://www.whaleroadreview.com/lucia-cherciu/
Laurence Carr. Book Review of Immigrant Prodigal Daughter. 2023.
https://lightwoodpress.com/2023/06/22/immigrant-prodigal-daughter-poems-by-lucia-
cherciu-book-review-by-laurence-carr/